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Welcome back everyone!  I hope you are enjoying the first week of The Real Food Experience Comeback Challenge as we introduce eating more fruit as a regular routine of our day. If you are not sure what I am talking about, you can get caught up here. We are making simple changes to what we eat each day that will add up over time.  It is my experience that what we eat each day can be quite controversial. Everyone has an opinion! That being said, it is widely accepted that eating fruit each day is beneficial for your health as they provide essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber. I have also found that eating fruit is an excellent substitute for highly processed snacks and sweets which is quite helpful on our real food journey.  

 

 

As you work at having fruit readily available for your family to eat, you may want to kick the challenge up a notch and be a little more intentional with your fruit consumption.  Try eating two different fruit servings with each meal. The foundation of a real food lifestyle is filling your body with lots of nutrition. The more variety of foods you eat, the more nutrients you are putting into your body and the better you will feel.

There is a reason why we often start with fruit when we introduce new foods to our babies. Fruit tastes good and we often refer to fruit as being “sweet as candy”. No matter how old your babies are now, I bet they are more willing to eat fruit compared to other healthy foods. Give it a try and let me know if your family joins you in fruit week. 

Adding fruit to you weekly meal plans doesn’t have to be difficult. I get it.  You’re busy and barely have time to think. I promise you though, eating real food really does get easier with time as it becomes the new normal for your household. Whole fruits are probably the easiest to incorporate into your daily routine. Think about grabbing a beautiful bowl like this one and filling it with lots of apples and bananas and placing it on the kitchen table. In addition, you can keep cleaned and ready to go berries in the refrigerator. I love to use these containers for my berries, but really any container works.  There you go, easy-peasy. Soon instead of grabbing the bag of chips, your family just might grab an apple from the bowl on the table. 

When these simple changes start to become routine, it’s time to add a few easy recipes to your game plan. Here are three of my family’s favorites.

 

For breakfast or snack time, we love a Chunky Monkey smoothie. It is super creamy and sweet and made extra decadent with peanut butter and chocolate.  You can find that recipe here.

Crockpot applesauce is a favorite of ours. It is delicious, easy to make, and perfect to have on hand for meals and snacks. 

If the heat is rising where you live, these grilled pineapple chicken burgers make for a fantastic summertime dinner. Make sure you make some extra grilled pineapple slices so you can have some for dessert topped with maple whipped cream. 

For more simple recipes your family is sure to love, check out my recipe index.  I am adding new recipes all of the time so make sure you check back often.  You will also want to grab this free meal-planning printable calendar to make your meal planning easier.  It has areas to plan your daily activities, and your evening meal prep. Leave me a comment and let me know if you try one of our recipes and how you are doing with this week’s challenge. Are you finding success adding more fruit to your daily meals and snacks or finding it difficult Remember this is Juggling Real Food……………..and Real Life. There is no judgement here.